Status Updates From Accidental State: Chiang Ka...

If I had my ebook reader with me, I would have put this book down already, but currently, I have nothing else to read. I am were Chiang had already fled to Taiwan but even with all the maneuvering within the KMT and all, this simply has trouble holding my interest.

If there wasn't this entry on the possibility of an independent Yunnan state, I probably would have put this book down already. It is so dry right now.

This is getting a bit dry. Too many details over too many pages within a short time span, that it has difficulty still holding my interest.

Looking back. Georg Kerr was probably right in assessing that a Taiwan governed by local Taiwanese and not Chinese mainlanders would best serve Americans' interest in the Far East. The Nationalists were at the time just as colonialist and imperialist as the Communists were.

Ok, the book did mention some of economical downfall of Taiwan in the first year of Chinese takeover, but not the medical downfall. Also, I had forgotten how much the KMT were also imperialist in wanting places like Tibet etc. In addition Chen had ordered to exterminat traitors some time after the feb28 incident and the phrase is su jian and there is jian again. I saw that several times in my life.

Hm, reading about the stance of the Roosevelt and later Truman administration is interesting. About Chen Yi, I already knew alot.

Reading about how Chiang wanted the Ryukyu Islands to be returned to China is really worrying as they were never part of the Qing empire but a tribute state. By his logic they should have wanted Korea returned to them. Luckily he removed both from the list before the Cairo conference. And its not as if his stance on Taiwan wasn't murky either.

So far nothing truly new for me what I read in the introduction. I knew the basics already.